The School on Heart's Content Road (34 page)

Rex's mother's name is Ruth. Worked the shoe shop off and on till shoes went to Taiwan or Mexico or somewhere. She and her husband, John, Rex's father, did a lot with the American Legion, keeping the hall up, making some really great Saturday night dances happen, and the Memorial Day stuff and the Veterans Day stuff, and the people, terrific people: Doris and Carl, Anne and Joe, John Gregory and Peg, Ray and Joan. It was a long drive to the hall, sometimes twice a day, but the Yorks were sociable, quietly sociable. Steady types. Hardworking. Law-abiding. No trouble to anyone in this world.

John is gone, buried in another county, too far to visit regularly. But “you don't need a grave to grieve,” Ruth will tell you.

Ruth is only fifteen years and ten months older than Rex, her first child. She has veiny wrists and hands and a settling neck, and her voice cracks some, but her face is still heart-shaped, her black hair has hardly grayed, her eyesight is almost perfect, and she walks a kind of hip-swingy walk without trying.

She is the possessor of a half dozen T-shirts with Southwest Indian themes: eagles, wolves, and spotted horses. Black T-shirts, black being her favorite. But also one green and one baby-girl pink. Then there are her turquoise earrings, which dangle. A turquoise and silver wristband. Sometimes she braids her hair, just one nice thick dark braid. Two would be going too far, too cute for today's world.

She is sixty-five. She has a boyfriend now from the Legion: a quiet man, a Korean War vet. Was a drinker once, twenty years ago. Was a smoker once, eight years ago. A quiet anxious type but kindly. Takes her places special. A quiet relationship.

Ruth hears Rex's van pull up outside. She pulls plates and forks from the drainer, sets them out. A reflection of late and nearly setting sun on Rex's opening van door plays on the wall.

The clock up over the table has a nice
tick-tock
. There's a rhythm to the life she has, now that Rex is back here living. And Glory, her granddaughter, Rex's only child. Glory is in and out, mostly out. But Rex (her name for him is Rick or Ricky), he is as the seasons, the tide, the sun, the moon, the swing and sway of the zodiac, heart of the home, the distant, wary, protective heart. He is everything now. He is the son she almost lost. But the soldier came home.

The van. It is pretty new. Not as new as his pickup. More or less paid for. It is charcoal gray with red black-edged lettering that spells out
YORK ELECTRIC
. And a cartoon lightbulb with legs and a handful of tools, cute face, and a little hat—a lightbulb on the run, heading out to help you with all your electrical needs. Rex York has a reputation in the area. He's good. He's fair. He's quick to get back to you and doesn't seem overextended, even though everybody wants him. He's creative and really gets into wiring for the more difficult restoration jobs. And he is polite. He's not what you'd call charming and not a real yakker. His smiles are brief, rare, and never forced or phony. If he smiles at you, you can feel very special.

You might notice that on his key ring is a little American flag. (This is long before the 9/11 media hype.) Or that he wears a wedding ring.

Right now, he is coming up onto the glassed-in front porch that leads to the kitchen in the ell. Handful of mail. Brown bag of groceries. No military cap. No cap at all, not when he does business. And his darkblue
work uniform is just as pressed-looking as when he left this morning. If you look at his feet, you'll see he wears heavy black high-topped military boots, but always with his pant legs over them.

The kitchen smells potatoey and oniony. And of hamburg.

He finds a gift on the table. Wrapping paper made by kids with a design of little clouds and smiling suns. A card. Says
REX
on it. Inside, the card is signed by a whole bunch of names, some of which he immediately recognizes.

“How'd this get here?” he asks his mother.

She is standing by the whirring microwave with her arms folded across her big red-and-black flannel shirt, worn with the tail out over her jeans. And on her feet, moccasins. And on her heart-shaped face, a funny little charmed smile. “
He
brought it,” she answers.
He
meaning Gordon St. Onge.

Rex hefts the package. Feels like a big book.

The microwave bings. His mother moves away, a kind of black-andred shifting blur in his periphery vision.

He peels off the wrapping paper.

A dictionary. Feathers are inserted as place holders, feathers of a goose, a blue jay, crow, rooster, hawk, thrush. Words are marked in red:
democracy
. . .
republic
. . .
socialism
. . .
capitalism
. . .
state
. . .
mammon.
He frowns. Somehow he feels both insulted and deeply touched.

He snorts to show his manly dismissal of this gag. And pushing him aside, his mother is setting her reheated yeast rolls on the table.

He goes to the cool quiet bathroom to wash his hands, comb his thinning hair, and rake a little water through his proud lush mustache, and then to the living room to put his feet up for one or two blessed moments before supper.

Time passes. Somewhere in the woods on St. Onge land, unbeknownst to anyone, Mickey Gammon is in his tree house. Home sweet home.

He can't just wear it around anywhere. Only to Rex's meetings. And here, alone. Not that he fears the FBI. Ha-ha-ha-ha. He imagines the FBI guys all being the spitting image of Mr. Carney or one of the other
high priests at the school here. Maybe the principal back in Massachusetts, who actually was the spitting image of Mr. Carney, at least in that tight-jawed, big-nostriled, bug-eyed, striding-the-halls, Mr. Hotshot way.

Or maybe all the FBI guys look like his brother, Donnie: tight-lipped, gray-eyed, and angry. Big eyes, much bigger eyes than Mickey's. Donnie has the Locke eyes. Mickey has the Gammon eyes.

“FBI are just eyes,” one of Rex's guys says. “FBI eyes are everywhere.” Sort of like in walls? And telephone poles? Maybe even trees? Big fucking deal. Unlike some of Rex's men, Mickey thinks the FBI is the smallest problem in his life.

Anyway, he wears it now, here in the dying light: his new camo BDU jacket with the official patch of the Border Mountain Militia high on the left sleeve. Olive patch with black embroidered lettering around the black outlined mountain lion. He's never seen a mountain lion in Maine, though rare unconfirmed sightings are reported. Kinda like having a Martian on your militia patch. Well, no, not
that
weird.

Mickey twists the clasp of the olive pistol belt into place. Then he leans back against his bags of belongings and rolled-up blanket and lights up a cigarette.

Some nights he lies here lonely. Some nights he lies here feeling worried about how it's going to be here in this tree house when snow flies. And at the moment, only one blanket. Some nights he lies here feeling pissed off at his brother, Donnie:
shithead
. Sometimes he lies here thinking about Erika, Donnie's wife: her softness, her little sexy expressions. Sometimes he lies here thinking about how his nephew, Jesse, is in his grave, only two-fucking-years-old. Sometimes it is cancer he thinks about, how it is like being possessed. You are eaten and digested from the inside out. You can't run from it. Sometimes he mulls over the jobs the militia guys get him: odd jobs, some easy, some hard, some silly. Sometimes he thinks about Rex and how Rex never eats sugar and never gossips. Sometimes Mickey lies here feeling depressed. But tonight he feels tough. Tonight he feels like
somebody
. Mickey Gammon: Border Mountain Militia. Fifteen years old and fucking hard. If it rains tonight, the tree house leaks like a sieve. And he doesn't give a shit.

The screen shivers. The screen warns.

Terrorists are among us and hiding in the hills, loaded to the gills with gunnnnz!
Citizen
militias!
Omigod! How can we stop this!? Where will it lead to!!?

Out in the world.

Today, somewhere in America, more foreclosures. More auctions. Another farmer plots his own death. And another. There is an art to making your death by combine look like an accident.

Another day.

A farmer is staring at his supper, not eating. How do you say good-bye to your wife and daughter when you are the only one who knows that tonight will be good-bye?

Across America.

The militia grows.

Concerning all the aforementioned details, the screen seems to be . . .